


Ghost Drift

by will_o_wisp



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Angst, Animal Death, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father/Son Incest, Incest, M/M, Mental Instability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 10:33:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5866066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/will_o_wisp/pseuds/will_o_wisp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Herc's afraid he's losing it, bit by bit, when Chuck seems to keep appearing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost Drift

**Author's Note:**

> Something that got into my head. Angst heavy, hopeful ending?

Herc was standing on a balcony in Honolulu. He had a drink in one hand and his eyes were on the bright lights of the city, breathing in the scent of a place that somehow still managed to smell vibrant and _green_ despite being within concrete and steel and glass walls. He supposed that’s why he liked Hawaii. The scent of her, the temperatures that were never harsh.

He took a drink from his tumbler, leaning against the railing, eyes going up to the sky, while on his left the ocean crashed not far from him, a sliver of black beneath the starry sky. He couldn’t remember what time it was, though he knew he had a conference in the morning.

Marshal Herc Hansen. The title stuck in his throat.

There was a sound behind him and he didn’t turn. He didn’t want to look as hands wrapped around his waist. The touch made him look down and he reflexively imagined what would happened if he fell.

“You should go to bed,” said Chuck, squeezing his hip. “You have work in the morning.”

“I’m used to running on no sleep.”

“While drunk?”

“Yeah. While drunk.” He tipped the last of the rum back, savouring it on his tongue a moment before he wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

Chuck pulled him and Herc went. He felt the touch of linen as the curtains billowed, the softness of silk sheets as Chuck pushed him onto the bed.

It was strange, Chuck feeling so gentle, but it was a gentleness that Herc was getting used to, even if he was worried it was driving him mad. They kissed, Herc’s hands cupping his face, fingers moving like he was trying to prove to himself he’d memorized it.

Chuck’s hand found his cock, stroking until Herc was erect. “I know how to get you to sleep,” murmured Chuck, and Herc grunted, his fingers petting through his hair as Chuck’s mouth enveloped him.

He stared at the ceiling, breath coming out in needy pants, his chest heaving. He came silently, and Chuck pulled off. Come pulsed over Herc’s stomach, Chuck’s hand stroking him off until it was like a sweet kind of agony.

Chuck cleaned him with a cloth, kissed him, and Herc thought he tasted himself on those lips.

“Sleep,” said Chuck, fingers brushing over Herc’s eyelids. “Sleep.”

“I can’t,” said Herc, his voice desperate. He didn’t _want_ to. Because sleep meant a lot of things he wasn’t ready to face.

Chuck sighed, nuzzling against Herc’s neck. “Why were you out there anyway?”

“I’m not sure,” he said, and Chuck shifted to put his chin on Herc’s chest to watch him. His eyes were grey in the dark.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know if you’re dead or not.”

Chuck just sighed, his face disappearing against Herc’s chest a moment, and then Herc blinked.

He was alone, and he swallowed hard, closing dry eyes that ached anyway. He knew he would wake up in the bed, go down to breakfast, go through all the motions alone. But it didn’t make any of it easier.

“I love you, boy,” he rasped, but he was already alone and while he thought he heard a soft “ _I know,”_ along the edges of his brain he knew he was alone and that the words fell dead in the emptiness.

If Herc had still been capable of crying he might then, but he let himself sink into dead sleep.

**

“No Max?”

The voice tugged at Herc’s senses. He hadn’t been aware he was spacing out until someone was addressing him. It was then he noticed where he was, that he was holding a drink in one hand and a small plate of hors d'oeuvresin the other.

And maybe he’d been staring at Mako and Raleigh, with rings on their fingers. Mako, unable to wear her PPDC dress blues because she was heavily pregnant. She had green in her hair, this time.

He looked down at his drink, wondering how much time he’d lost between the conference that morning and then. He was always losing time lately. He attributed it with his slowly weakening mental faculties. He knew he should see a therapist.

All those thoughts rushed through him before he turned and gave a smile to Tendo. Smiles were easy. You just pulled back the corners of your lips and crinkled your eyes.

“Hey, Tendo,” he said, putting down the little glass plate on an empty spot of table near him. He held the drink, though, and he thought he could imagine Chuck’s jaw grinding a bit as he finished it and his eyes started scanning for another.

Tendo supplied, too, as a waitress passed. He plucked two champagne flutes from her tray, and while Herc didn’t much care for the stuff it was _something._ He drank half of it in a go before remembering himself and giving Tendo the hug he deserved. He’d been there after all, when Chuck…

No. Had to get a lid on that.

“So, no Max? You always bring him to these things.”

Herc wished he hadn’t asked again. “Fat lil spud died,” said Herc gruffly, finishing his drink now, wondering about another. Wondering if he was an alcoholic. “In his sleep, like he deserved at least.

“Shit, I’m sorry. How long…?”

“Six months ago,” he said. He hadn’t seen Tendo since the _last_ reunion dinner. Shame, he supposed, that he was letting people get away from him. But it was easier to just show up and do speeches and dinners than to let these people in his life where they might want to talk about Chuck.

He didn’t say how lonely he’d been since then. Or how he’d been losing it more and more since Max had gone. Seeing ghosts of Chuck around the house. Feeling him. Hearing Chuck say I love you, and not in that little-boy voice of his memories, a six-year-old boy with a beautiful crayon drawing and saying “I love you daddy” with a lisp because of his gap teeth. But in a man’s voice, like he’d never heard before.

 _I need help,_ he thought.

“Let’s get some air?” asked Tendo, and Herc couldn’t agree more, even if he did stop at the bar on the way out.  
The hotel had a little garden, and they walked around it together. Tendo told him about how his wife had left him, how he had partial custody of his son. Herc hardly heard, because he was expecting all the commiserations about losing Chuck to begin. About how he was a good lad, and died too young. Herc was bracing himself, hands tight around the glass, half-worried it would shatter.

He didn’t know when he lost time again. Maybe it was after seeing Chuck in his PPDC blues standing on the edge of the garden and watching them. He didn’t look very real, more like a Drift vision. He smiled and nodded, like he was acknowledging something, encouraging something.

The next thing Herc knew he was standing in a hotel bathroom that wasn’t his, looking at himself. The ball chain of Chuck’s tags was visible on the side of his neck, and he looked like a mess. His face was red from alcohol and he didn’t know when the last time he shaved was.

He could feel hands on his stomach and a chin on his shoulder, heard a murmured _it’s okay,_ in his ear. Maybe it was that that made him leave the room, with the impression of finding a drink.

Instead he found Tendo tapping ash into a tray, a bottle of Koloa Rum that was half drank with two small hotel glasses filled with ice. The ice bucket was half water, but Herc looked away from it and at Tendo.

  
Tendo, who had his tie undone. Who was wearing those damn braces under his jacket.

He doesn’t know why he did it. He crossed the room and pushed those stupid braces off Tendo’s shoulders. Tendo looked up, an eyebrow raised, before Herc leaned in and crushed his mouth to Tendo’s. He knew about Tendo and Yancy. It wasn’t much of a secret, really, and he knew the look in Tendo’s eyes.

He was lonely. Like everyone else damn near, left over from the dregs of an old war.

Tendo at least kissed back. He tasted like nicotine and rum, but Herc didn’t mind. It was sort of grounding in its own way because it was _real_ , it’ was something he could hang off of. A sensory input that wasn’t a hallucination.

They fell on the bed, pushing clothes off. Tendo respected the tags and didn’t touch them, and Herc didn’t remove them. It had been awhile since Herc had had a man in his mouth and he sort of enjoyed it, sucking Tendo down and feeling hands in his hair again. It wasn’t much of a chore, and it _did_ feel good to have a warm body with him.

And Tendo, it turned out, was as good at oral sex as he was at talking. Herc spilled in his mouth and groaned his name out loud, wishing he didn’t feel so filthy _guilty._

**

The next morning he left without saying good-bye. There was no room for that sort of thing, Herc figured, and he knew Tendo would get it. He’d understand that Herc was fucked up, why he couldn’t do the domestic thing anymore, even if it was _barely_ on the edge of domestic.

So he drank in an airport bar instead of meeting Mako and Raleigh for breakfast like they’d planned. He hopped on an early flight back to Sydney and wished Honolulu never happened. That he’d been able to just stay home.

He slept on the plane and Chuck was there with him complaining about airline food and how the kid in front jumped around too much.

**

Herc felt like a piece of dynamite. They didn’t make it much anymore, he knew. The world had moved on to bigger and better things. But he remembered seeing them when he was a boy, and being warned about old dynamite. Told about how the glycerine would bleed through the casing and rendering it volatile.

It was how he felt standing in the house he’d bought after the Shatterdome had been closed. He walked the empty halls, realizing how stark his house was. Minimal furniture, minimal life. All his personal effects were locked into a big antique trunk he had leftover from when his mom and dad passed.

He sat at the trunk going through things, wishing there were tears as he worked through a bottle of scotch.

The leather of Chuck’s old jacket was so soft and he put his face in it and a sound popped from deep in his chest to smell it. The scent of the Shatterdome. But Chuck’s  was gone from it.

It didn’t seem fair.

Next to him, a gun sat by the bottle, and he rocked as he held that old leather jacket.

**

He tried to shave and he cut himself. That was what he got, he supposed, for using a straight razor. He felt so stupidly drunk when he looked at the whisker and shaving cream cloudy water and the red dripping into it, swirling in patterns.

Chuck was sitting on the edge of the tub, his eyes wary.

“Get out,” begged Herc when he saw him in the mirror, putting his hands over his eyes.

“Dad…”

“Please.”

Chuck took the razor, tilted his head, and helped him. Swipe, swipe, swipe, tap, tap, tap, his face came clean. Chuck’s hands were deft and quick. He put paper on the cut, and he kissed Herc softly.

“It’ll be okay, dad,” he said.

“No it won’t. You have to go.”

“I can’t leave you like this.”

“GO!”

His boy looked stricken for a moment before he disappeared and Herc was alone again. He was holding the razor now, and when he looked in the mirror he didn’t even recognize himself.

**

Chuck didn’t stay gone long though. He seemed to know he was needed, so when Herc fell asleep on the couch and woke in his bedroom with a soft mouth on his stomach he didn’t scream for him to leave.

“You’re not crazy,” Chuck told him, after Herc had pulled out of him. “I’m still here.”

Herc’s face broke, and he covered Chuck’s body with his own. Because he knew Chuck wasn’t. Because he knew there was nothing he could do but cry and cry until he woke up alone again and start the cycle all over again.

Unsurprisingly, the trunk was locked. He couldn’t find the gun. Herc wondered if he’d done it when he slept. The jacket was on top of the trunk though, waiting for him.

**

A sleep specialist had found nothing unusual about Herc’s sleeping. Herc kept the readouts anyway, because even while he’d slept in that tiny room covered in leads Chuck had been there to talk to him.

He flew with his readouts to Anchorage. He knew he probably wouldn’t be welcome but he had to go all the same. He was just a man with a bag, a string of dog tags, and a tablet.

The place was bitterly cold compared to home. Herc knew he hadn’t brought enough clothes, but he did his best to grit his teeth and ignore the cold regardless. He didn’t know why Tendo wanted to live here, of all places, but he supposed it had something to do with both Yancy and his boy.

The neighborhood where Tendo lived was small and peaceful, full of frost covered houses that were covered with fairy lights for Christmas. He didn’t see anyone in sight except one man shovelling a walk.

When he found the right place and knocked on the door he didn’t get an answer. The taxi had already taken his money and fucked off, leaving Herc standing on a front stoop that was freshly shovelled.

Breath frosting at his mouth he looked left and right, wondering which way was closest to a phone so he could get a cab back to the hotel.

Teeth starting to chatter, Herc turned and started walking down the stoop when the snow shoveller approached him, pulling his hat back.

Tendo.

He stood facing him. Tendo didn’t look upset, though, just confused. Herc wasn’t really expecting that.

“You look like you’re freezing your ass off,” said Tendo, walking by him. “Get inside.”

He followed. Tendo’s place wasn’t like he expected it to be. Where Tendo’s work station had been organized chaos, this was neat and tidy, an assortment of styles that took Herc a little time to realize were inspired by the different countries he’d been to. Maybe were remnants of people he’d loved and lost in the PPDC.

Unsurprisingly, on the wall, there was a picture of Yancy and Tendo next to another of Tendo and his wife and kid. Herc knew he didn’t have the guts to put up any sort of picture of him and Chuck up back in Sydney.

“So why did you abuse your powers as Marshal and come to my house?” asked Tendo, after he’d shrugged off his puffy jacket. He looked strange, wearing a button down t-shirt and jeans. He went over to the coffee pot, which seemed to hold a place of honor in the space, and began to work.

“I need you to look at something.”

Tendo raised an eyebrow as he poured coffee into the small basket and shut the lid, hitting the on switch.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And… I’m sorry. About Honolulu.”

“I get it,” he shrugged. “I’m used to people skipping out after a night.”

Herc winced. “I’m fucked up, Ten.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“No I’m really fucked up.”

Tendo studied him for a moment. “You’re an alcoholic aren’t you?”

“Probably,” said Herc, thinking about how much he’d like a drink. “But it’s worse than that. He’s everywhere, Tendo. Even here, I thought - I thought he walked with me down the street.”

The man didn’t say anything for a long moment. “You’re imagining that Chuck-”

“No, I’m _seeing him._ He helped me shave, he hid my things. He - he’s the one that bought me a ticket to come up here.”

“Chuck.”

“Yes.”

He thought he heard Tendo mutter something like ‘ _oh boy’_ under his breath before he wrung his hands. Herc knew he sounded insane. He _was_ insane, how could he not be, seeing visions of his boy running around. Sleeping with him. Trying to take fucking care of him.

Now was when he’d get locked away, probably. Maybe Tendo would suggest some R&R at a facility for patients like him that probably should be in therapy and taking medicine.

“I thought maybe I was going schizophrenic. I had an uncle like that, and…” Herc sighed. “And then I went to this sleep doctor.”

“Sleep doctor.”

“He took scans of my brain while I slept. Didn’t help much. Said it looked like my brain was activating in some unusual areas, but it was still just dreaming. But I thought you could look at it. Because of your background.”

“I’m not a brain doctor,” said Tendo, looking nervous.

“No but you know what a brain looks like when it drifts.”

That brought Tendo up short, he could tell. Herc pulled the tablet from his travel bag and turned it on. It was cold to the touch, and he ignored the way Chuck stood by the window watching him with a mildly curious expression on his face.

“What are you hoping for? That you’re drifting, that Chuck isn’t a hallucination?” Tendo looked very uneasy now. “Look, big guy. I want you to get better. This isn’t… a movie. This is real life. Drifting can only happen between two active minds.”

After pulling up the scans he slid them over. “But if Ghost Drifting is real, why can’t this be real?”

“Ghost Drifting is a remote possibility bordering on myth,” said Tendo, picking up the tablet. He frowned at it, zoomed in and out a moment, before going to a small alcove in the kitchen and picking up his own laptop.

It booted in a moment, and Tendo was scrolling through old files Herc had let him keep. He hadn’t seen the harm in it.

A moment later a picture of two brains appeared, the same regions lit up like in the scans Herc had given Tendo. Herc walked up, looking at the data tag in the corner. It had been from the last monthly training exercise before Pitfall.

“So it does look like a drift.”

Tendo nodded, holding the scans up and scrolling through them. “We need to call someone with more experience in this area, but something strange is going on. I mean, different groups always theorized _why_ the pons worked, that it could be proof of people having souls.”

A few years ago and it would have been his turn to be skeptical, but now he was desperate to cling to anything that meant he wasn’t really losing it. “So Chuck could still be around, in a way.”

He pretended he couldn’t see Chuck leaning over the scan, naming the different parts of the brain that were activated. Herc had never really bothered learning them since the Academy, and he wondered if it was buried information or if it was really Chuck there.

“He could. Theoretically. The Drift is complicated. And Ghost Drifting was always suggested between living pilots, not… separated ones. But it’s… well. We’re seeing something.”

Chuck looked back over his shoulder and smiled at Herc before Herc tried to blink him away.

“I need a drink.”

“Me too,” said Tendo, shutting the laptop.

**

Chuck wasn’t there when the two of them started to drink through Tendo’s not inconsiderable collection of beer. Herc usually preferred hard alcohol, but the Alaskan-made brew tasted good enough to forget his rules.

For a while Tendo talked about theories with ghost drifting and Herc just listened. Then he started telling Tendo the things he saw and felt, things that couldn’t be measured. He broke down after his eighth beer, telling Tendo he loved Chuck. Explaining their relationship to another person for the first time.  
And Tendo didn’t turn away. He didn’t look disgusted, or even like he was pretending not to be. He just sat with Herc through his crying jag, the first real bit of mourning Herc had done in a long time.

He took him up to the bedroom later and helped him into bed. Tendo promised he’d be downstairs, and let Herc sleep in sheets that smelled like the other man, a soft bed that was so unlike the hard thing he’d bought he felt like he was lying on a marshmallow.

And he dreamed.

**

Chuck was riding him. Herc was looking at him through half lidded eyes, hands on Chuck’s hips. He’d missed the way Chuck felt and looked during sex, so hungry. This dream was more vibrant, stronger than the others, and it felt so real.

They were in the Shatterdome again, and Herc was just a ranger. Chuck was making those little squeals he got when he wasn’t getting quite his way, so Herc fucked into him faster. Chuck’s mouth came open and his chest heaved. Herc reached up to pinch at one pink nipple and made Chuck gasp as he tugged it.

He looked down at the way their bodies were joined. Watched Chuck’s hips pump so he bounced on him, the ripple of muscles in his legs.

He spilled inside of Chuck, gasping out his name, drawing the boy down. Chuck seemed so eager for his cum, pressing down as Herc came, gripping him tight as Chuck reached down to fuck his fist.

When they were both satiated and gasping, Herc pulled Chuck close. Like this it was easy to pretend Pitfall hadn’t happened yet.

“I love you,” he told Chuck, and Chuck sighed, a contented sound he so rarely heard from the boy.

“I love you too, dad,” said Chuck, and Herc closed his eyes. He ought to feel dirty for that, but he didn’t.

“You’re not going to go away, are you?” he was afraid as he said it.

“Gonna watch your arse until you’re wrinkled and grey, old man.”

“You’ve already given me plenty of grey hairs.”

Chuck laughed softly, but he started kissing Herc’s neck. “It’s okay to move on, though. I can back off.”

He squeezed Chuck. “I don’t want you to go.”

“Just want you to be happy, okay?” He looked up and smiled. “And don’t worry about me. I’m good with… whatever this is. So long as you’re good too. Being on this side has made me realize a lot of things. Good things, I think. I’m okay, really. I just want you to be okay too.”

He didn’t say anything, as Herc started to cry again, loud and noisily, feeling like a child.

**

He woke up the next morning feeling refreshed. Feeling… anticipation of a new day. He wasn’t grudging, or scared of how he felt like he was getting up from next to Chuck. How he caught a wiff of his scent. For the first time in years he felt content.

He found Tendo on the computer with two cups of coffee next to him, like it would be too hard to get up and fuss with the pot. He also had a half eaten donut on a plate.

Herc helped himself to an apple instead, chewing as he watched Tendo close his laptop and turn.

“You okay big guy?”

“Okay enough,” he said. “I’m not insane, so that counts for something.”

Tendo smiled. “You wanna get breakfast? Mako and Raleigh are in town. I know for a fact they miss you.”

“Sure. She popped yet?”

“Yep! Baby boy. Named… well.” There was a pause, like Tendo was afraid of offending him, and Herc shook his head and smiled.

“Charlie.”

“Charlie. Little Chuckie.”

“Can’t wait to meet the sprog. Let’s go.”

Tendo texted them and got up too, pulling on his puffy jacket. “You sticking around awhile?”

“You wanna keep me around?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Tendo, touching Herc’s arm. “You know I do.”


End file.
